


Hold

by Nyctolovian



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous Gender My Unit | Byleth, Baby My Unit | Byleth, Family, Fatherhood, Feels, Fire, Gen, Parent Jeralt Reus Eisner, Pre-Canon, To Kill or Not to Kill, it/its pronouns for babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28340838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyctolovian/pseuds/Nyctolovian
Summary: As Jeralt sat silently in his bed, he contemplated once again killing the baby he was cradling.
Relationships: Jeralt Reus Eisner & My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Hold

**Author's Note:**

> it's the holidays and i binged a bunch of games, including FE3H. I got rly attached to the father-child rship of byleth and jeralt so uh yeah. Please accept this humble offering where i imagine what might have gone through jeralt's head while he was in the monastery with baby byleth
> 
> Special thanks to my friend LD (tho i doubt she'll see this) for beta-reading this even when she didn't know anything abt FE3H haha! Im sorry for making ridiculous sudden requests from nowhere.

As Jeralt sat silently in his bed, he contemplated once again killing the baby he was cradling. The room was so quiet in the dead of night that he could hear his own heartbeat, thrumming under his skin, against the weight in his arms. 

Heartbeat, Jeralt thought. No heartbeat. The baby whom Sitri had birthed—died birthing—had a pulse, but no heartbeat. Jeralt remembered when he first pressed his ear against the baby’s chest and heard nothing. He had startled and nearly dropped the infant, whose arms flailed at the sudden jerk and looked at Jeralt. Despite the doctor’s warning, it still shook him to his core that this child lacked a beating heart. 

Then, there was also the disquieting fact that even after nearly three months since its birth, he had yet to hear it laugh or cry. Nonetheless, it breathed, huffing soft sleeping breaths as it lay in his arms now. And when it was awake, it would watch him with wide blue eyes, stark against its pale soft skin. There was a hollow emptiness behind those eyes. Nothing in it that Jeralt could discern. The infant simply watched him, blinking slowly and mouth slightly parted.

None of this was normal for a baby. One did not even need to be familiar with babies to know this. Jeralt was beginning to question if this baby was living at all. What did Rhea do to the baby? Did his wife really die in childbirth? Should Rhea be trusted at all? Was this child even theirs?

Maybe it was for the best that this infant ceased to exist. Whatever Rhea had planned, Jeralt did not trust it, and this child was likely a pawn on her mysterious chessboard. Jeralt sometimes felt her stare on the baby, as though evaluating, pondering, deciding, and he’d clutch it closer to his chest and move to the next room. She was waiting for something from the baby, he knew it. Waiting for the opportune moment. Would this baby still be a pawn then? Or would it be a knight, bishop, rook, or perhaps even a queen? 

He shuddered at the thought. Killing the child was for the best. It would end its lifeless existence and stop Rhea’s plans. The knight knew numerous ways one could kill another person. But he had little idea how he could kill a baby without raising any suspicion. 

Jeralt was still deep in contemplation, cradling the sleeping bundle, when a shout rang through the monastery. He thought nothing of it at first. Until one shout turned into several, and quickly burst into a clamour. He stood up and opened the window, where the shouting was closest, and saw people running, yelling. 

“Fire!” someone’s voice rose above the commotion. “Fire!” Then, he heard a loud bang and the night burst into orange light. The room opposite his was on fire. 

He cursed under his breath and quickly evacuated his room, grabbing his travelling bag on the way out. As soon as he stepped out, he was nearly shoved back in by the stampede of hysterical people trying to make their escape.

A wave of heat attacked Jeralt’s back and he looked behind to see that his curtains had caught fire. Red-hot flames licked the floorboards and leapt towards the ceiling. One of the many fingers of the flames clawed upwards and slashed his arm, searing Jeralt and sparking a thought in him: what if the baby died in the fire? 

Immediately, he dismissed it. This was what others might call an opportunity presented by the goddess. But the baby… It did not laugh nor cry, but perhaps it still felt things. It might still feel pain. He couldn’t know for certain but there were surely less cruel ways to die. His chest tightened punishingly for ever thinking of doing this to an innocent child. It was not the child’s fault it was born in this cruel, unliving body, or born into the schemes of the Archbishop. 

The fire grew ever larger. It was a ferocious beast, raking through his room and reaching towards him, hungry for another taste of his flesh. Jeralt coughed as smoke assaulted his senses, and he pressed the bundled baby closer to himself, and wrapped his cape tighter around his body. 

Curving his shoulders inwards, he dashed out into the crowd, taking the brunt of the jostling and shoving. As he neared the evacuation point, he slipped out of the crowd, into the woods, and downhill. 

Then, he reached the river he had been in search of. The river roared as it rushed down the hill. All Jeralt had to do was drop the bundle in the river. He doubted its body could be recovered, what with the strength of its flow. Then, he would return to Garreg Mach, maybe play the role of the distressed father, whose child was left in his burning room, and mourn for the baby when the news returns that his child was nowhere to be found in the ruins left by the blaze. He had the soot and burns to prove that he had not stood idly aside. It would be believable, he reckoned. 

Jeralt stood at the riverbank and unfurled his cape, revealing the bundle in his arms. The baby must have woken from the ruckus, because its stubby arm poked out from the cloth, and the opening was pushed wider. And then, blue eyes were staring into his again, watching. The infant’s tiny arm fell against his chest, as though it was still too heavy a limb for its tiny tiny body, and its fingers tried to grasp his leather armour, and when it failed, simply splayed its short and fat fingers over his left breast.

Jeralt stretched his arm outward, holding the bundle over the rushing river, steeling himself. Hands outstretched, the baby lolled its head and its gaze followed him. Wide blue eyes, staring into him, and there was still nothing in them—no fear, no protest. It didn’t yet understand. It didn’t understand that he was about to drop it in the river, about to kill it. 

His arms returned to his chest as he fell to his knees and gently rest his cheek against the warm bundle. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

This was not what he wanted, Jeralt knew and had always known. Sitri birthed this baby, died to give it life, and here he was taking it away because what? Because he was  _ scared _ ? Maybe this child wasn’t theirs, but did it matter? He had fed it, bathed it, and cradled it for the past months, fumbling through the first months of fatherhood. This child had no one else. So it might as well be his. 

To hell with right or wrong, this child frightened him, but he was keeping it, and keeping it out of the reaches of the Archbishop. He would not let this baby become a chess piece to whatever ridiculous game Rhea was playing in the name of some goddess.

Carefully, he re-wrapped the bundle, the familiar motion grounding him. The infant looked up at him, its lips covered in shiny slobber. With a sigh, Jeralt used the towel to wipe its mouth before picking it up again. He checked the contents of his travel bag. He didn’t have much with him, only the bare essentials, his diary, and his wife’s ring. He’d have to make do, he supposed. 

Rising to his feet, he adjusted the bundle to make sure his child was safe and secure. With a grunt, he made his way further downhill, embarking on a journey to escape the far reaches of the church, to keep his child, Byleth, safe. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to put "good parent jeralt" as a tag at first but i was like: ".... a good parent wouldn't think to throw their child into a fire or river." But, i'd like to just say here that he does become a good parent. Maybe I'll write more baby!byleth and jeralt things. But we'll see how. There is a significant lack of fics like that tho so uhhhhh yeh! 
> 
> Hope you liked this. As usual, kudos and comments greatly appreciated!!
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://nyctolovian.tumblr.com).


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